by Susie Taylor
“Yes, Daisy.”
“Can I get my ears pierced?”
For a moment I think she will say no. But she looks from me to Elizabeth.
“Yes. And I’m going to get mine done too.”
We enter Noah’s. Noah’s is the fancy hairdresser’s. They play loud music, and when we walk in, the smell of expensive floral shampoo hits us. Noah’s has dim lighting, and ladies sit chatting as red dye gets brushed into their hair. At Hair for You, where we usually go to get my bangs cut, all you can smell are the chemicals they use to do the perms.
Amanda takes our money and shows us the studs we can choose from. I choose a plain steel pair, and Mum goes for ones that have a green cubic zirconium in them. It’s all women in here, except for one male hairdresser who’s wearing really tight pants and calls Mum “darling” when he has to nudge past her.
“Just squeezing past, darling,” he says.
The woman who pierces the ears is called Vanessa. We have to wait for her to finish with one of her hair clients. Her eyebrows are plucked into thin arched lines, and her own ears are pierced three times on each side.
She is delighted Mum is getting hers done.
“It’s about time, honey. You will love it. Change your earrings and you can change your whole outfit. I can do something about the grey in your hair too, if you want.”
Mum goes first. Vanessa spends a lot of time making sure the dots she has placed on each one of Mum’s earlobes are even. She gets Elizabeth and I to approve the placement of the marks, and then she dabs Mum’s ears with rubbing alcohol and gets out the gun. Mum closes her eyes. I don’t watch, but I know it’s done by the noise that sounds a lot like a stapler.
Vanessa turns to me.
“Okay, sweetie, your turn now.”
“It hardly hurts, Daisy, just like getting a shot,” Mum says, but she looks very pale, and the male hairdresser has ushered her to a chair.
The metal is cold against my ear, and I am focussing on holding still. Vanessa shoots in the first stud. As she is setting up the second one, I realize I can’t hear properly and my vision is getting fuzzy. The gun goes off, and the other ear is done. I get off the stool and everything goes black. I wake up lying on the hairdresser’s shiny black floor with Vanessa’s long curly tresses hanging around my face as she gently slaps my cheeks.
“Okay, chicka, you’re fine. We caught you on the way down. Just a little shock. It’s all done now.”
“Daisy, Daisy, are you alright? Say something to me, Daisy.”
I try to say I’m fine, but I feel so ridiculous lying here on the floor that I start laughing, and it tips over into laugh-crying. When I start, Elizabeth does too, and neither of us can stop. Every time we look at each other, it gets worse. We are both laughing and weeping on the floor, and Mum is still fussing,
“Daisy, you’re hysterical. Stop laughing, Elizabeth, it’s not helping. Pull yourself together.”
I see Candice walking past the store with her mom, clutching several large, full shopping bags. Candice looks at me and Elizabeth surrounded by concerned hairdressers handing us tissues and patting our shoulders. I look her straight in the eye, and she turns her head away not wanting to meet my gaze.
On Valentine’s Day we have a small class party. We sit at our desks eating chips and cinnamon hearts off of paper towels. Miss Blake plays CHUM FM from a portable radio. Wanda asks me if I like Damon.
“No,” I say. “No, not all.” I feel my cheeks getting hot as I lie to her.
“I knew it. You’d be good together,” Wanda tells me, and I feel a surge of pride.
I see Cora pick Damon up from school. I start to walk over in her direction. I’m deciding if I’m brave enough to say hi. I see Mr. Dean marching towards her car and divert my route. I think he is going to yell at Cora for smoking out front of the school; you can only smoke in the staff room and in the back teacher’s parking lot. I am surprised when Mr. Dean leans down, smiling, to talk into her window. Cora laughs up at Mr. Dean and blows smoke out of the side of her mouth so it doesn’t head in his direction. Damon gets in the car and doesn’t even look at Mr. Dean. Cora sees me and waves as she pulls out, but Damon stares straight ahead through the windscreen.
Mum is on the phone when I get home from school. She didn’t get the job she interviewed for. “Not as much recent experience as the other candidate,” she says to me, getting off the phone. “How am I supposed to get experience if no one hires me?”
There are a bunch of flowers Dad sent sitting in a vase on the dining-room table. Mum is not sure if he sent them on purpose or if his secretary doesn’t know he’s left her and just placed the order like she does every year. Halfway through supper she gets up and puts her still full plate next to the sink.
six
“Daisy, come here and talk some sense into your mother.” It’s Olivia. I have walked into a white-wine-fumed discussion.
“What’s Daisy going to do if I’m working for March Break? Hang around here all day by herself?”
“What’s she going to do if you don’t take the job? It’s not like you two were heading off to Florida.”
“Oliva wants me to fill in at her office as receptionist for a week, but it’s over March Break.”
“Do it,” I say. I have been dreading a week of Mum and I stuck in the house together.
It is the Sunday night before Mum’s first day of temping. The batteries in my Walkman are dead. I scroll through the stations on my clock radio. I come across the talk show Sex with Sue and turn the volume right down. I can just barely hear it. I’m listening, rapt, when Mum starts tromping across the hall towards my bedroom in what must be high heels. I quickly twiddle the dial until the speakers admit static fuzz with only the occasional line of a French pop song making it through. Mum knocks lightly, but doesn’t wait before opening the door.
“You’re sure I’ll look alright tomorrow?” she asks me. She’s wearing her interview outfit and newly polished black pumps.
“You look great. That looks perfect.”
“You think so?” The radio emits a particularly loud buzz, and Mum looks at it, then me. “Are you alright? You look a bit flushed. Don’t answer the door to strangers tomorrow. And if you use the stove—”
“Mum. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, alright.” She surveys my room. “You could spend some time cleaning up in here.” She eyes the piles of clothes on my floor, my desk covered in dusty bits of paper.
In the morning, Mum wakes me before she leaves; I wish her luck, then close my eyes and sleep until noon. I get up and walk from room to empty room. I look out the front window. It’s warmer today, and the accumulated snow has formed into brown slush that lies in ridges across the road. The sidewalk is a slick of water-covered ice. There is nothing to do.
I head back into my bedroom and lie on top of my unmade bed. My eyelids feel heavy and my limbs warm. The feeling comes, a tingling in my thighs, my armpits gets sweaty. I know girls can masturbate, but I don’t really know how. I experimentally put a finger down into my underwear, but I feel embarrassed. I go to the bathroom and wash my hands.
I put the plug in the bathtub and turn on the taps. Using my hand to test the temperature of the water, I feel the pressure and I remember something I heard. I make sure the water isn’t too hot, then get into the bath. Lying on my back, I scoot my bum down until I’m right down at the faucet end of the bathtub. The water is halfway up my ears when I lie back. I put my left leg straight up in the air, and my right I sling over the side of the bathtub. The water pours down over my crotch. At first it just feels nice, like the comforting pleasure of putting your hand over the end of the hose, and then something starts to happen. I’ve never felt this before—it’s a sensation that sweeps through me; at first it comes down through my fingertips and down through my body. The thoughts in my brain shut off, and all I can do is feel the pleasure of the water coursing over me. My body bucks up, and I pull away from the tap—the feel of it suddenly too mu
ch. I’m throbbing like I have a second heartbeat. A wave has splashed all over the bathroom floor, and water is going straight down into the overflow drain from the still running tap, and I’m laughing, my body filling with relief and a physical joy.
The other kids show off Piglets from Disneyland and accumulated chair-lift tags on the zips of their ski jackets. “How was your break? What did you do?” Wanda asks me.
“I read and took long baths,” I tell her.
Now March Break is over, all anyone talks about is the grade eight overnight trip at the end of the year.
“I need these back by the last day of April. Make sure your parents sign the permission slip. Just handing in a cheque isn’t enough.” Miss Blake lays the form across my desk.
I take the permission slip for the week-long trip to Quebec and fold it in two. I have to decide if I’m going to participate in this rite of passage. Mum is on the phone when I come in. I point at the slip, and she nods as I place it beneath the salt shaker. Later it is stuck to the fridge with a Union Jack magnet, but Mum doesn’t mention it and nor do I.
Elizabeth sees it when she arrives home on Friday.
“You’ll have fun,” she says.
“I’m not sure I want to go,” I say.
“There are just so many things that could go wrong. What if she gets her period?” Mum says.
“Nothing will go wrong, and she’ll take some Tylenol and use a tampon.” They both look at me.
“She doesn’t use tampons yet,” Mum says.
“You should start,” Elizabeth says. Today she takes no prisoners.
Mum and I look at Elizabeth. I imagine getting stuck for a week sharing a room with Candice, or worse, Miss Blake.
“It’s so much money right at the moment,” Mum says.
“What about Dad?” Elizabeth says.
“You could ask him on Wednesday when he comes to take you for dinner,” Mum says hesitantly to me.
“I’ll ask him,” I say, deciding Elizabeth is right and I should go.
I get ready too early, nervous at having a date with my father. I wait with my jacket and shoes on at the front door. He shows up late. “There’s a flea infestation at the lab. I’ve got to get back. I can’t take you for dinner tonight. Some other time, okay?”
Mum stands behind me with a pile of short-sleeved shirts Dad requested that she pull out for him. I can smell detergent coming from them; they are freshly washed and newly folded. He gathers the shirts, and leaves.
In the bathroom I fill the sink with water and then light the corner of the pink permission slip. Pieces of light ash rise slightly in the air and then fall into the sink. I have to drop it before the entire thing is reduced to ash. The last part is too damp to burn, so I crumple it into a tight ball, wrap it in toilet paper, and stick it in the bottom of the garbage.
Wanda, Peony, Murray, epileptic Brittany, the two poor kids Ken Smith and Lisa Kelly, and I stand in the back of Mr. Dean’s class while he takes attendance. There are not enough desks for us to stay in Mr. Dean’s classroom. He sends us to the library to work on our assignments. Miss Blake wants us to make up tourism guides for Quebec with pictures and little captions. This way we’ll get to learn about all the places our classmates are going this week.
“Do we get marks on this?” Wanda asks, but Mr. Dean ignores her question.
On Wednesday, Wanda finds a big coffee-table book about the architecture of Quebec, sticks a copy of Anna Karenina in the middle, and settles down to read. The librarian ignores us. Brittany didn’t show up to school today. Peony is knitting a Bonhomme scarf using a complicated method involving straws and wool. Ken, Lisa, and Murray are looking up rude words in the dictionary.
“Anals,” says Murray. “It just goes on about something year by year?”
“That’s annals, dumbass,” Lisa says, grabbing the book from him. “You’re looking up the wrong word.”
Culture in Quebec, I write, has got to be better than this.
Wanda announces her book is boring. The sun shines outside of the library windows. It’s the first warm day of spring.
“Let’s get out of here,” Wanda says to me.
“We’ll get in trouble.”
“No one will notice. We’ll come back before home time.” The librarian is in the staff room. She spends more time there drinking coffee than in the library.
“Leave your jacket and grab a Duo-Tang.” I follow Wanda’s instructions. In the hall we pass the staff room, the smell of smoke leaking out from under the bottom of its door. We keep heading down the hall. I figured we were headed to the girls’ washroom, but Wanda keeps going.
“Act casual,” she says.
A teacher and a janitor walk by us and don’t even give us a second glance. The hallway is clear. Wanda slowly opens one of the school’s side doors, grabs my arm, and pushes me through. She slips outside after me. We duck down and walk by the windows of the grade seven classroom. Once we’re clear of the windows, Wanda heads to the alley that acts as a shortcut between the school and one of the residential streets. It cuts between the yards of two suburban houses. I follow a few steps behind her. I stand in the short stretch of path waiting for someone to come yelling after us, but nothing happens. All I can hear is blood beating in my ears and the sound of Wanda breathing.
Despite the warm weather, we are starting to get cold in the shade; we didn’t bring our jackets. There’s an old gate in the fence on one side of us; it’s overgrown with shrubs, but Wanda and I force it open. We push through twiggy branches and find ourselves in a sun-filled back garden. The curtains are drawn, and it doesn’t look like anyone is home. I look over the fence. I can’t see a car out front. At the back of the yard, there is a patio bordered with large planters made out of old railway ties that block the wind. We hunker down and sit behind one of the planters in case someone comes out of the house.
I grin at Wanda. I feel the sun burning through my jeans, and I’m thinking about the summer.
Wanda leans forward and hauls a crushed pack of cigarettes from her back pocket. She flips up the squashed cardboard lid, and I see the top of one cigarette poking out through silver foil. Wanda takes out the lone cigarette. It is bent into a curve, and in places, the paper is wrinkled. Wanda fishes out a book of matches from inside the remains of the pack and gets me to hold the cigarette while she lights a match. She takes the smoke from me and puts it in her mouth. It won’t light properly, just flares for a moment, and then goes out. She drops the lit match and examines the cigarette. There is a crack in it. She breaks off the end of it and lights a second match. This time the loose bits of yellow tobacco at the end start to glow; Wanda inhales steadily, and then exhales smoke. She proffers the forbidden cigarette, and I stick the damp filter in my mouth and breathe in. I can taste Wanda’s lip gloss.
Not much comes out when I exhale. Wanda takes the cigarette from me and takes another deep drag, then extinguishes the remains in one of the planters. She buries the butt under a small mound of soil and sticks a dead leaf above it stalk down, like a tiny flag. No one even questions our absence when we return to the library.
The Game starts two weeks after the other kids return from Quebec. The rules are unclear to me, but it twists my stomach just watching it take place. Not everyone plays; those of us who usually stick to the sidelines don’t participate, and Wanda, who is good at Red Rover and Murder Ball, avoids this. Darlene and Jenny are observers too, shaking their heads no when Candice calls out to them.
The Game always takes place on the basketball pad by the back door of the school. No windows face this area. The door where the senior classes line up is here, but the area can’t be seen by Miss Blake casually looking out of her window. For a lot of the Game, the players stand around kicking the cracked surface of the concrete. Eventually, a group of boys decide to chase the girls. They’ll go for the pack, but once they’ve managed to separate out one girl, they’ll ignore the others and focus on their lone victim.
Wanda and I
sit on the players’ bench by the side of the baseball diamond. We have a view of the proceedings here, but are far enough away we won’t be mistaken for participants. I look up at the sound of feminine screaming. Three boys, Brett, George, and Tony, rush towards a group of six girls who have momentarily let their guard down. Candice is facing the wrong direction and doesn’t see them coming. She steps back, and the boys fill the space between her and her friends. She takes off across the school ground; a pack of boys pursue. Candice is fast. She runs to the left and soon clears the hidden part of the school grounds. The teacher acting as recess monitor blows her whistle when Candice gets close to the edge of the school yard boundary. This ends the pursuit, and the boys lope back towards the basketball court. Candice bends over catching her breath, then slowly follows behind the boys.
The other players wait for Brett, Tony, and George to return. None of the other boys hanging around are serious players. They take part in the initial chase that separates someone out, but not the shirt lifting. That is always done by Brett, Tony, and George. There’s about five minutes left of recess when the boys lunge again. This time it’s Tiffany they pursue. She’s not fast, and instead of running the same direction as Candice, where eventually she’ll become visible to the teacher in charge of us, she runs straight back past where Wanda and I are sitting, towards the track field that can’t be seen from anywhere except the back end of the school. I hear Wanda swallow when Brett gets close enough and grabs Tiffany’s arm. She’s stopped running and is surrounded by the three boys. They pull up her shirt exposing her bra. Usually, this is the end of it. I look away, but I can hear the taunts. “Show us your titties, show us your titties, show us your titties.”
“Brett,” I hear Candice yelling. “Stop, that’s enough.” The boys ignore her, and I look back. Tiffany’s face is covered by her T-shirt, her hands held up in the air by Tony. Brett reaches out and pulls the side of her bra over her left breast so her nipple is exposed. It points out, vulnerable like the nose of a mouse. I look away back towards the school. Mr. Dean has come out the door at the back of the school, and he is watching.